


Desmond Miles, Parent and Problem-Solver

by Assassin_J



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Autistic Character, Background Shaun/Desmond, Brief ableist language, Gen, Kidfic, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 19:06:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12754359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Assassin_J/pseuds/Assassin_J
Summary: Writember Day 13 - "Mend"Quinn and Jess had a tumble on the playground, and they broke one of his favorite toys.





	Desmond Miles, Parent and Problem-Solver

**Author's Note:**

> Quinn is 3 and Jess is 5.

"Daddy, Daddy, it broke! Jess broke it!"

"Nuh-uh, did not, it was an accident!"

"Hold up, hold up," Desmond said as the kids came running at him, "don't start yelling and fighting, please."

"It broke!" Quinn repeated in the exact same tone and volume, holding out a favorite wooden toy, a horse with wheels. One of the wheels was snapped off now, the axle broken.

Desmond took it from him and examined the damage. "Aw man, how'd that happen?"

"Jess broke it!"

"I fell down!" Jess said fiercely, stamping one foot. "Accident!"

"Okay, all right," Desmond said, patting Jess' head. "I'm not mad. Are you hurt? What'd you fall off of?"

Jess answered his questions in reverse order. "The playground. My leg got an owie here." They turned around to show Desmond a few shallow scrapes on the back of their leg. "Cuz I landed on the horsie."

"Okay, well let's get your leg cleaned up first, then I'll see what we can do about the horsie."

Quinn saw Desmond set the toy down on the kitchen table and head towards the bathroom with Jess. He followed them and whined a little, wordlessly.

Desmond understood the meaning behind the whine. "Sorry, Quinn, but hurt people take priority over hurt things," he explained as he took out the first aid box and started cleaning dirt off the cuts. "We can make another horsie but we can't make another Jess. You get what I'm saying?"

Quinn was quiet a moment before nodding. He sat down in the hall and set the horsie upside-down, spinning the unbroken wheels as he waited.

"Okay, s'not bleeding very much, so-"

Jess interrupted him with a laugh. "Snot bleeding! Ewww! You said snot bleeding! That's gross! Hahaha!"

Desmond snorted. "Ha, yeah, that would be pretty gross. Stay still so I can get this bandaid on." He placed it over the scrapes, smoothing the edges down with his thumb to make sure it was stuck well. "Okay, cool, just try and leave that on for a day or two so it stays clean." He went over to Quinn. "Right, let's see about this wheel now."

Quin handed the toy over again, and both kids followed Desmond to the living room. He examined the broken axle again. "Lemme see. I think I know what might work." He rummaged in Shaun's desk until he found a few unused pencils and a roll of shipping tape. Fuck if he knew what Shaun needed the tape for, but it'd come in handy now.

"That's pencils, Daddy!" Jess said, pointing. "Horsie isn't made of pencils!"

"Pencils are made of wood, though!" Desmond said. "And look, watch this!" He wrapped a bit of tape around the middle of the three pencils, removed the damaged axle from Horsie, and poked the pencil-trio through in its place, then popped the wheels onto either end. "Hah! Check it out!" He set it on the floor and rolled it toward Quinn.

Quinn noticed this replacement "axle" was way longer than the undamaged front one, and cried out, "Not the same!"

"Yeah it's not the same, that doesn't mean it's bad," Desmond said, sitting down by his son. "You can still have fun with it, right?"

Quinn watched Desmond roll Horsie around a little more. Because of his autism, he had trouble dealing with sudden changes in familiar things, even "unimportant" changes like this.

"Maybe imagine it's an upgrade!" Desmond offered with a warm smile. "Horsie wanted to be better at chasing Templars, so she got new gear installed!" He pushed it up the side of the couch. "Woah, check this out, horse parkour!"

"Hmnn," Quinn whined.

Jess put their hands on their hips. "You like it better broken? Stupid!"

"Hey, no name-calling," Desmond said without missing a beat.

"But Daddy, he didn't even say thank you that you fixed it!"

"He has trouble saying things sometimes, you know that." Desmond said, rolling Horsie back down the couch. "It doesn't mean he's not smart."

Quinn watched the bumpy movement of the toy coming back towards him, and finally exclaimed, "I don't like it! With the pencils, it doesn't go right!"

Desmond set the toy aside and sat in front of Quinn. "Hey. If it means that much to you... I'll take Horsie to the workshop and fix her back the same as she was before."

"Really? The same?"

"Well, as close as I can manage. It'll be way better than the pencils, at any rate."

Quinn's eyes brightened and he waved his arms about happily.


End file.
